Posts Tagged ‘ financial crisis ’

What a start to the year. CJF’s contrarian prediction of 1,860 on the S&P came to be on January 20th. Subsequently, the market rallied strongly on the hint of more quantitative easing out of the ECB, and the adoption of negative interest rates by the Bank of Japan. Any doubts that 2016 will be a volatile, and difficult year, should now be erased. After a tumultuous January for investing, a period when seasonality and investment inflows are supposed to support markets, CJF is stepping back to assess big picture dynamics for the global economy and the overall investment environment. At risk of being overly obvious: Something is not quite right with the global economy In the seventh year of recovery since the financial crisis, Brazil is in recession, Russia...

PARANORMAL: beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation, not in accordance with scientific laws. A great friend of mine, and incredibly savvy investor, recently pointed me to Bill Gross’ January 2012 Investment Outlook: “Towards the Paranormal”. He suggested it was an intriguing, provocative, and worthwhile read. After reading the four page monthly I immediately agreed with all of those qualifications even though aspects of the paranormal thesis don’t sit with me. After pondering for a couple of days, here are my observations (Bill Gross, if you are a Crackerjack Finance reader, please feel free to comment at any time). Now would be the time to read the original piece on the PIMCO website to get much more out of today’s thoughts. The financial markets are slowly imploding...

The ECB issued a terse press release detailing an interest rate cut for the main refinancing operations of the Eurosystem (from 1.25% to 1.0%) commencing on December 14th. In addition, the ECB cut rates on the marginal lending facility and deposit facility by 25 basis points. This move was widely expected and had a limited impact on the euro or equity markets. The press conference and Q&A (45 minutes later) with financial reporters was where the real action took place. The only market friendly outcome was the announcement to extend lending to European banks from a one-year to a three-year term. The collateral requirements for these loans are also being loosened. The press conference was predominantly hawkish. When asked about hints earlier in the week that the ECB could...

Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, announced sweeping austerity measures and reforms, bolstering confidence in Italian sovereign debt markets. Monti’s plan includes tax increases, government spending cuts, pension savings and raising the retirement age. Italy needs to enact these reforms over the next couple of years, and there are some political risks to implementation, but the immediate market response is positive for this round of announcements as opposed to the cynical reactions in the summer and fall. Italian 10-year borrowing costs dropped from 6.68% to 6.10%. While it is dangerous to extrapolate any daily changes in sovereign debt yields due to the vagaries of European markets, this change is driven by a major announcement which would impact actual fundamentals (again if implemented) and the change in yields is simply a...

The financial crisis in Europe detracts from a normal focus on the underlying strength of the US and global economy. Despite the US economy being relatively solid, an escalating Eurozone crisis has the potential to derail economic growth because of the enormity of the impact from a financial seizure. While the solution to the Eurozone liquidity and structure crisis is being debated, there continues to be very resilient economic data from the rest of the world. US GDP data is set to recover towards the 2.5%-3.0% range based on the strength coming from retail sales, manufacturing, and the labor market. It is relatively rare for the market to have a flat year of returns when earnings grow sharply in a non-recessionary environment. Clearly, valuation multiples for the S&P 500 have...

Germany failed to get bids for 35% of the 10-year bonds auctioned today. Yields are up about 10 basis points this morning. The increase in borrowing cost is insignificant for Germany. Yields are still well below 2%, and Germany continues to benefit from the combination of very low borrowing costs, and a declining euro which helps support export competitiveness. The first sign of German bond market stress does highlight the risk the EU-17 is flirting with; the breakdown in confidence across the entire region. What started as a crisis in Greece has spread one-by-one to the rest of the European sovereigns. The reason the crisis has spread is not based upon profligate actions by the rest of the Eurozone. On the contrary, progress has already been made across Europe...

For almost a decade, emerging markets have been in a bull market with high growth rates, declining interest rates, and capital inflows. During the financial crisis, emerging markets were hit like financial assets around the world, and capital flowed out of the asset class. Over the course of 2010, and most of 2011, emerging market currencies strengthened once again. Recently, the European financial crisis cast doubts on the risk appetite for emerging market investment. EM currencies experienced a sharp, across the board, selloff in September 2011. Currencies such as; the Brazilian Real, Mexican Peso, and Indonesian Rupiah quickly declined by 20%. Part of the decline was based on the start of EM central bank rate cuts but the majority of the move was simply risk aversion. Many of the...

The US “Super Committee” failed to make any progress on the sole task it was created for: deficit reduction. It now appears probable that there will be an announcement today stating the committee has “failed to reach its mandated goal of reducing deficits over the next 10-years by $1.2 trillion dollars”. An announcement of this sort would be particularly discouraging because the committee looks unable to achieve even partial success. At a time when the global economy and financial markets are experiencing a crisis of confidence in the future, this result is a major letdown. The US economy has been incredibly resilient despite the confidence-sapping political ineptitude, and the political/financial breakdown in Europe. The main issue with a potential “lack of result” announcement from the Super Committee is not...

Housing is slowly and steadily showing signs of a bottom. Housing permits are required in most states before a housing start and are a leading indicator of overall housing demand. Housing permits improved to 653k which represents a 10.8% increase from September and a 17.6% improvement vs. last year. Both single-family and multifamily permits improved. Mortgage rates falling to 4% have helped housing affordability improve to the best levels in a number of decades. The combination of lower rates, growing median incomes, and falling house prices have all contributed. The longer-term outlook for housing is sound and buyers today should generally expect price appreciation over the longer-term. The market remains almost entirely focused on Europe. The financial crisis in the Eurozone is the most important driver and risk to...

I’ve been writing about the impossibility of the ECB running appropriate monetary policy for 17 different nations. The dilemma couldn’t be more evident when contrasting the economy of Spain with the economy of Germany. Spain actually has less sovereign debt relative to GDP than does Germany. The problem for Spain isn’t the level of debt the country has incurred, but the depth of the current recession and the questionable capitalization of the Spanish banking system. Spanish inflation is running in a range of 1.7%-3.0% depending on how you define it (1.7% core inflation). This morning, bond auctions in Spain only attracted investors at much higher yields, approaching 7%. As a result of higher interest rates and a deepening recession (which is helping to reduce inflation), real interest rates in...

For a number of months, the financial crisis in Europe has been explained under the guise of sound versus unsound policy. If this were indeed the case, the fix would be simple; eliminate unsound and unsustainable policy and voila, the problems would just go away. European leaders have shifted blame continuously from one problem to the next. First the issue was speculators, then Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal, then Spain, then Belgium, then Italy, then the need for austerity, then the macro economy, and now the problem has erupted to everywhere. The current set of events will hopefully amount to a positive development as it becomes clear that the problem is the construct of the Eurozone itself. Europe’s misguided attempts to reform its way out of a crisis are...

After Wednesday’s market action around the world, it’s a good time for a big picture assessment on the state of the financial markets. The attitude out of Europe has pendulated between nonchalance and vitriolic attacks among the EU-17. Italian sovereign rates spiraling above 7% have brought the eleventh hour upon the region. Escalation of the crisis has caused all types of forward looking investment to become somewhat of a farce. The environment of complete and utter policy uncertainty will no longer be withstood by markets as the full scale part of the European financial crisis enters its fifth month. After bungling the first few opportunities to implement a fix, it has become clear that dramatic action will be required to keep the Eurozone intact. The problems of the Eurozone’s...